The Fox and Her Guardian
by Wellthatdidn'twork
Summary: Ichigo just can't catch a break, can he? Now he has been brought to another world, and meets a girl named Naruko. Follow these two powerhouses on their adventures as they live life together, and face some interesting challenges along the way. Takes place after Fullbringer Arc and before episode 1 in Naruto. FEM Kyuubi & FEM Naruto.


**I'm back!**

 **I know I've been gone for awhile(*cough,cough*2 years*cough,cough), but I do have my reasons which I'll explain at the bottom.**

 **I'll usually do this so you guys can get the story faster if you don't care or are too excited to care after seeing an update.**

 **Now onto my updated version of the first chapter of my first story.**

Key:

"Talking."

 _'Thinking'_

*Sounds*

 **Zanpakuto/Kyuubi Speech**

 ** _Hollow Speech_**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or Naruto, they belong to their respectful owners.**

 **Chapter 1:**

*Sniff, sniff* _'I don't think I can handle it much longer!'_ The girl thought as tears streamed down her face. _'It hurts so much, sooo muuuccchh!'_ she thought as she continued to cry.

Who is this girl you might ask? Well she is none other than Naruko Uzumaki. As for why she is crying, it was her birthday. Usually that meant presents and fun, but not for Naruko. For her it was just another day where she was shunned by everyone in the village. They looked at her with disgust and fear, like she was a monster. She didn't know why this was, she was just treated that way all her life as long as she could remember.

 _'Will_ *sob* _someone just_ *sob* _acknowledge me?!'_ She thought as broke into another fit of tears. It was bad enough that the adults treated her badly, but because of that their kids started to treat her the exact same way. She could never make friends as parents told their children to stay as far away from her as possible.

As bad as this is, it only gets worse as she had no family. She was an orphan with no parents, siblings, or any other known family. She had no one to lean on.

No family would take her in, so she was "taken care of" and watched by the random shinobi of the clan. The most prominent, however, would be the Hokage of the village. He seemed to be the _only_ one to actually care about her. Of course he couldn't be there too often for her as he was the leader of the village, so he was rather distant with her as well.

As she cried she prayed to any mystical force to relieve her of her pain. Death would have been better than all that she had been through.

 _'Will somebody, anybody, just help me?!'_ Well it was her birthday after all, so why shouldn't those mythical powers grant her wish?

 _ **-**_ _With Ichigo_ _ **-**_

*Groan* _'Dear kami do I have a headache!'_ thought a teenage boy with bright orange hair as he sat up. This boy being none other than Ichigo Kurosaki.

Not only did he have a headache, he felt extremely stiff, like he had been still for more than a year!

He yawned and stretched, popping a few bones. He opened his eyes and saw his surroundings for the first time. He was in a forest with tall trees. The sky seemed cloudy and looked like it was about to rain soon. It looked oddly calming. But none of that was important as only one thought came to Ichigo's mind.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! WHERE AM I!?" He ungracefully shouted as he tried to piece where he was.

It was then that he also noticed that he was in his soul reaper form and he had the new Zangetsu he got after the whole fullbringer incident. A few weeks had passed with nothing much happening besides an occasional fight with a hollow.

The last thing that he even remembers was going to bed after a long day of work from Ikumi who had _generously_ sought him. All this didn't prevent Ichigo from guessing, or rather accuse, of his situation on how he ended up where he was.

"Damnit Kisuke! When I get my hands on you, you will regret it!" He shouted to the sky, not caring who heard him. He wasn't some goddamn guinea pig!

Ichigo was certain that this was caused by one of _his_ experiments. After all, who was the one other person screws with Ichigo's life more than his dad? At least his dad did it for the sole purpose of embarrassing him and nothing else!

 _'Oi, Old Man, do you know where that bastard is?'_

 **No, Ichigo, I can't sense him near by.**

 _'Well can you at least tell me that this was caused by_ _ **him**_ _?'_

 **Unfortunately, I am just as surprised as you right now, Ichigo.**

 _'Uhhhhh...'_ _Could he not have a day were things go bad for him for once, just once?_

 ** _Oh you poor thing, is the wittle king scared of a wittle change in scenewy?_**

 _'Will stop talking like that! Because if you don't, I'm shoving Zangetsu up your ass!'_

 _ **Wow King, I don't swing that way. Just because both of you guys do, it doesn't mean I like to take it in the back door.**_

This got Ichigo all flustered while the old man had many veins pop up on his forehead.

Blushing like his namesake, he struggled to make a sentence, _'Wha-WHAT! I'm not gay you damn idiot!'_ Seriously, why did people always say that to him. It was bad enough his dad thought that, but others? Why!?

 _ **What's the matter King? You don't like gay people? That's pretty homophobic.**_

 _Ichigo started pinching the bridge of his nose. He was done with him. Ichigo could handle(if you wanna call it that) many idiots such as Kisuke or Isshin, but that hollow he just couldn't handle. He had a particular talent of getting under his skin._ _'Zangetsu, would you mind shutting him up so I can think for a second?'_

 **My pleasure.**

 _ **Try not to break your fragile hips while your at it Old Man! Otherwise kicking you ass is gonna be no fun!**_

Then everything went silent. _Finally, he had peace. Well, peace of silence anyways._

"Well, anyway I need to find out where I am." He said to himself. He concentrated hard to find any source of reiatsu to point him in the right direction. He doubted it would work since it wasn't exactly his forte, but he tried anyway. After five minutes of frustration, he located an energy source, albeit a small one. However, it felt different. It was similar, but it was just... lively? It was really hard to describe it.

"Well I got to start somewhere"

After picking up his sword he turned and headed in that direction, hoping that it would get him somewhere. Using shunpo, it took about a minute for him to get there. During that time, he surveyed the area noting that it wasn't like any forest in Karakura.

When he arrived, he found himself in a beautiful clearing with a natural small pond in the middle. He surveyed the area looking for the energy he felt.

After a second of looking, he saw a little girl curled up against the tree in a fetal position. She had bright blonde hair in twin tails(AN: or is it pigtails? idk), she wore a jumpsuit that was orange and blue, and by the looks of it, couldn't be any older than his sisters. The detail he noticed the most, however, was that she was bawling.

Ichigo had always had a soft spot for kids, sure they could be brats he enjoyed them none the less. His protective instincts would not let him sit by and watch a little girl cry, so he started walking towards the girl.

"Hey, what's wrong, are you hurt?" He asked with a lot of worry in his voice.

Naruko, faintly hearing a voice, looked up from her arms. She was fighting the tears down so she could see who was talking her. After awhile of struggling to hold back the tears, her vision cleared up so she could see the guy.

He was an old teenager or possibly a young adult. He was tall, about 6 feet tall(almost 183 cm), slightly tanned skin, and was wearing a black kosode and a matching hakama with a sword on his back that she couldn't quite see. The most prominent thing though, was his orange hair. It actually reminded her of a carrot, a thought and image that weirdly cheered her up, if only a little.

His natural frown deepening, he crouched down to get to her level. "Hey, are you okay, did something happen?" He asked again while reaching out for her.

After having the whole talk about stranger-danger from Sarutobi after a particular… incident, which on an entirely unrelated note, was completely not her fault; she started moving away so as to not get another lecture and out of a slight genuine fear to the stranger.

"It's okay! It's okay! I'm not going to hurt you!" While saying this he pulled out his ridiculously huge sword, and tossed it to the floor a bit behind him. "See?"

With seeing how unbelievably sharp and huge his sword was, not to mention how effortlessly he handled it; yeeeeeeah, that did _not_ make her feel safe.

Seeing that she wasn't exactly reassured by his gesture, he sighed. He decided to sit down on the ground in front of her. Far enough that she wouldn't move away, but close enough to come across as comforting. "What's bothering you?" Ichigo asked again, with a rather soothing voice. Well as soothing as his intimidating appearance would allow.

However, the girl was still apprehensive around him, and didn't say a word about what was going on still.

So Ichigo changed his strategy to get her to talk. Living in a clinic, and having a doctor has a father(as stupid as he was) did have its benefits from time to time. Such as getting patients to get comfortable with the doctor; Ichigo had that skill locked down.

He started talking about his friends and all of their stupid times together. Most of which involved bad experiences for Keigo. After telling about many of the best stories, Naruko started opening up to him. She even laughed for the story of Keigo being chased by the girls soccer team while wearing a skirt(proudly orchestrated by Tatsuki and himself).

After having her warm up to him, he decided it was time he asked her once again. "So what's going on? A girl doesn't usually go to the woods to cry for no reason."

"Nothing happened, I'm fine." She told him. Even if he was a nice person, she didn't really wanna tell him about her problem. It was personal, and she didn't want to show that it actually bothered her. She didn't want to show that she was weak.

At this he frowned, "No you're not, you were crying, something has to be wrong." Closing his eyes, he let out an exasperated sigh. Opening his eyes, he started once again, "Look I get it, I'm a stranger, and you don't really know me. So let me start from the top." Extending his hand he introduced himself. "The name's Ichigo Kurosaki."

Naruko stared at the hand for few seconds, pondering whether she should take it, before slowly extending her own. "Naruko Uzumaki."

Hearing her name he smiled. It was one of those rare smiles that he showed to only to his sisters, but now seemed like an appropriate to break that rule. "Look you can tell me and I'll help in anyway I can."

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the smile. He was actually being _nice_ to her. After all this time, she was able to tell if someone was faking a smile as she had often received those. This smile carried _the_ care and warmth that she had never experienced before, not even from the Hokage who was the closest person she had .

"No, no I'm fine, really you do-"

"Stop. I know you're not fine, so please don't lie to me." Cutting her off he extended his arm out once again, he placed his hand on her head and smiled at her once more. "Please, tell me what's wrong. I may not have known you that long, but I promise I won't hurt you... okay?"

When he ruffled her hair, she cracked. She couldn't describe it, but he felt... different. Yes different, was this what she had been deprived of her entire life? _'Is it because he actually treating me like a normal person, or is it something else?'_ She wondered. Either way she decided that she could trust him, or rather give into her desire for human interaction. She couldn't quite tell yet.

*Sigh*"I'm...I'm out here, because everybody… everybody hates me." Now that got Ichigo's attention, he was wasn't expecting that. She then continued to elaborate, "You see I don't know why, but everyone from my village treats me like a monster. It's like my very presence disgusts them."

Needless to say, Ichigo was starting to feel very sorry for her.

"They avoid me like a plague," tears were starting to brim to her eyes, "None of them even care about me, like today, its my birthday and yet again no one has even bothered to wish me good one." At this point tears started to stream down her face.

Ichigo couldn't bear to watch her cry, so he did the only thing he could think of, he hugged her.

Naruko couldn't believe what was happening. She burst into heavy sobbing. Not tears of sadness, but for the first time in her life, she cried tears of joy. She felt all her hatred, sadness, and fear wash away in a tide of happiness. The happiness to finally be loved.

He let her cry into his shoulder, knowing that she needed this.

-Unknown-

The vast black, no light for the eye to be see. If one were to describe it would be called the embodiment of nothing.

But then a ripple occurred, expanding through the darkness, followed by more ripples each more intense than the last.

This was short lasted before everything went quiet. Only for the darkness to shatter like glass.

The glass of darkness then proceeded to disappear into the void that replaced it. Then there was nothing once again.

The author tries to make this sound majestic as well as poetic, but coming to the realization that he done goofed it.

But alas the author must try to fit some symbolism is his story, as to make it seem that the tale has meaning and value.

-Back with Ichigo&Naruko(after some cheesy writing)-

They were like this for quite a long time with Ichigo holding her in his arms. After a few minutes she started to calm down. As her shaking started to subside, Ichigo pulled away and looked at her gently, "My name is Ichigo Kurosaki, what's yours?"

She cleaned of face of the tears, and looked at him with a smile, "Naruko Uzumaki."

"Well, happy birthday Naruko." He said with a smile. Her eyes widened slightly and a blush came to her face. Those words alone made her day. Some people would never understand how even little words like that could mean everything to someone.

This heart warming scene didn't last long as nature started to make it rain. Ichigo reached down and picked up Naruko bridal style. Naruko couldn't help but lean into the warmth that his body provided.

"Where do you live?" He asked and after a second of looking around, she pointed in the direction of the village. Then he shunpoed in the direction she had given. Naruko reached out and grabbed Ichigo's kosode as the rest of the world turned to a blur. She clinged on for dear life as he raced across the forest. Despite how fast he was going, they were still getting wet from the rain.

When Ichigo saw a village he slowed down to a stop on a random roof. "Where do we go now?" When he looked down at her he saw spirals in her eyes. "Sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm perfectly fine." She mumbled in a dizzy voice. "It's normal that the sky is where the world is, isn't it? You also had 9 brothers, right?"

"Yeah… sorry." He would need to be more careful about that.

After a minute or so, it wore off, and she pointed him in the right direction. He shunpoed in the direction she said, but much slower as to not get her sick. When they arrived at her apartment, they went in.

When Ichigo the apartment, the first thing he saw was a dining room. A fridge was at the very left in the corner. A table was located in the center of the room. To the right there was a door.

"You should take a shower." he said while putting her down, "I don't want you to get a cold from the rain."

"What about you?" Naruko asked worried about him.

"I'll take one after you so don't worry about it." He assured her quickly.

She nodded and went through the door to the right heading for the shower.

As she took the shower he got to think things over. His first thought was about the village. The architect was different from anything he had seen while not alien in appearance. Second was the weird energy coming off the whole town. It felt like Naruko's, but some were stronger than others.

 _'Hey Old Man, do you recognize anything?'_

 **No, everything is relatively new to me.**

 _'Alright, what about the energy I'm picking up on?'_

 **It seems like reiatsu, but it is blatantly different. If I were to say, I'd say that it's spiritual in nature, but it isn't limited in any form. From the energy coming off the city I'd say everyone has it, some more than others.**

 _'What do you mean, not limited in any form?'_

 **I mean the energy doesn't have a filter that to interaction of it and the physical world. The physical world and the spiritual world has a filter that prevents interaction with one another. A person may gain the ability to see the spiritual world if they are somehow associated with death that boosts their reiatsu. Most people will never have this association, but there are exceptions such as the people who live in the jureichi. This place however has everyone generating the strange power.**

' _I see… we'll have to do more research about this place and the energy coming off it. Who knows? Maybe we'll find a new torture method for Kisuke?'_

On this Zangetsu and the hollow were in agreement.

-Meanwhile with Naruko-

Naruko was cleaning her body, but her mind was focused elsewhere. _'Was all of that real, or am I losing it?'_ she questioned. She prayed it wasn't a dream that she was gonna wake up from, she doesn't believe she could handle it if that were to happen.

But then she just had a realization. A horrible realization. She was in the shower, naked, with a random stranger(for all intents and purposes) in the other room. She may have been young, but she was not naïve on the male lust. After all, she did create the Sext Jutsu. This led to another realization, 'Ichigo' could be a spy!

She clearly didn't think this through. _'Dangit! Now I won't be able to take a shower in peace, knowing this!'_ Hurrying up her shower , she glared down the door the entire time.

' _He was so slick about it! How could I invite him in!'_ She knew exactly why, Ichigo had treated her like a normal person, something that she had been wanting her whole life. How could she not invite him? But that didn't make her feel any less embarrassed on how fast she had accepted this. She just let a man in her home, when he could be an enemy!

Getting out of the shower, she quickly dried off and got dressed in her sleep wear, which consisted of navy blue shorts and a loose orange top. She exited the bathroom into the hallway, and sighed in relief that she didn't see him there.

' _Why am I overreacting to something like that? I can feel that I can trust him, but Sarutobi told me to be careful…'_ Ichigo may have swayed her, but she herself knew better. She needed to be careful with this new guy, but she couldn't help how she felt. For the first time in her life she felt loved, and by Kami she wasn't about to let that slip away.

She opened the door back to the dining room and saw him leaning against the wall. Her heart fluttered with joy at seeing him again. See! Now he swayed her again!

Seeing her come out he in turn headed into the bathroom, leaving behind his sword and his word that he would be out soon.

After he walked by started questioning what she should do. _'Do I run and tell Sarutobi? What if he's angry that I brought him here in the first place? If I don't tell him though, he might get even angrier? Uhh, what do I do?'_

Naruko was split. She knew that this could be an enemy of some sort, but… her heart told her she could trust him.

So she began examining his sword to distract herself. _'With a sword like that, he could have easily killed me, especially out there. Not to mention the fact that if he wanted to take me captive he could've.'_

After pondering this for a second, against her better judgment, she chose to follow her heart and trust the man. _'Hopefully this is the right decision.'_ Finishing her thoughts she turned her attention back to the sword

 _'How does he even lift it, it's huge!?'_ she wondered. _'Now that I think about it, he moved unbelievably fast, even with the sword!'_ More questions started pile up about her 'savior', but she didn't have much time to think about it as Ichigo was getting out of the shower. She decided to question him later as she was getting tired.

As there was only one bed they had to sleep together. At first it was rather awkward between the two. Ichigo wanted to sleep on the floor, but Naruko would have none of it. She needed to feel his presence.

As the minutes rolled by, they both became more comfortable, and each started passing off into dreamland. For Ichigo, it was kinda like sleeping next to his sisters.

As sleep gradually took Naruko, she realized his presence was like a warm blanket that protected her.

As she descended into sleep Naruko had one last thought, _'Ichigo, thank you.'_

-Naruko's mindscape-

 **Well, it looks like the** _ **kit**_ **has encountered something interesting. It isn't a normal human as it feels different and reeks of the scent of death. My, my just what** _ **are**_ **you** _ **Ichigo Kurosaki**_ **?**

 **End**

 **Just a small update adding to the first chapter. Adds some more words and dialogue to hopefully get it to feel more authentic. I also added more of Naruko's thoughts, as to show that she is not a blind zealot completely trusting Ichigo.**

 **Alright guys, it's time to address the elephant in the room, that poetic line tho. It was just terrible. I mean seriously wh-Wait what? That's not the elephant? Then what-oh… you guys were meaning my absence. Well I guess.**

 **You see when I first started this story, my health issues were rather extensive. They didn't start when I started the story mind you, I knew about them before hand. I was writing the story while having these issues. Now that's not what set me behind. What set my behind was school.**

 **You seeing handling these issues put me behind in school. I had to catch up and work really hard. I managed this, but at the end of the day, I was too tired mentally, and I just really couldn't focus on the story.**

 **Then winter break hit, and I could finally start writing again! Just one problem with that, life had other plans. My internet started acting up, and would spontaneously turn on and off. The continued all through the break and almost to the end of the school year. We tried fixing it, calling our provider, getting new routers, new cables, everything but it didn't change. Finally! Our area got a good internet provider and we went with them.**

 **You see through all this I couldn't save my work. Every time I got on to write it wouldn't save all the work I did, but I would disconnect from the internet. So I had to copy my work, then paste what didn't save. Then I would have to wait for the internet to connect again, and try to save again. Most of the time my internet would disconnect again, and I would just repeat this process over and over and over until I got a lucky break. It was just tiring.**

 **As this went on, I started writing less and less. It really broke my spirit, and I gave up. Then the most embarrassing thing happened for me, I lost my passion to write. All these ideas I wanted to write about, all these grand tales, it just wasn't for me anymore. If you have no passion for it, then it only becomes a chore. That's what happened to this story. It became a chore.**

 **Then for the last year I pretty much abandoned this story. I kept seeing people favorite/follow this story, and it brought a sense of pride, but ultimately did nothing to motivate me. Well aren't I just a piece of shit. However, for about the past 3 months I've been finding that spirit and wanted to write more, but I still saw this as a chore.**

 **Then recently I was given a challenge. A challenge to do one thing every single day. 100 PUSH-UPS, 100 SIT-UPS, 100 SQUATS, AND A 1Okm RUN! Ok, but seriously, something most people would see as mundane or rather easy to do, and I thought of this(not that writing a good story is easy, I'm not discrediting the authors on here, or elsewhere, it can be challenging).**

 **But in reality how hard is it to type 1,000 words? Not that hard, so I settled on that. But I have a feeling that once I get going I won't want to stop. So in summary for 1 year I stopped writing for legitimate reasons, then the next year illegitimate reasons. For that I am sorry. It not only sounds bad to me, it also brings me great shame(I'm talking like I'm from a house nobles. WTF? Oh well).**

 **To apologize I will try to find that spirit and give you guys what I promised. Not just for you guys, but for me as well. I can't call this story mine if I refuse to look after it.**

 **I will tell you though, that I found chapters worked out for you guys, but when I read what was on them… dear God no. I have no idea what I was doing with the story. So hopefully my better understanding of a story won't create such an abomination ever again(really this is just an exaggeration, but still).**

 **Also I know you guys wanted a second chapter, but that that would be weird to continue the story as if nothing had ever happened. So I settled on a new beginning for a new beginning of my passion.**

 **Now I was gonna respond to your guys' reviews, but I don't know if that'll be appropriate after that long ass monologue that was depressing as hell. So I'll just end it here.**

 **Wellthatdidn'twork signing out.**


End file.
